


Rumors : Ultimate Detective Shuichi Saihara (Executed)

by Tripping_Upon_the_Stars



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, But also, Character Death, Execution, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Minor Injuries, Saihara Shuichi-centric, Serious Injuries, a lotta stuff here can constitute as some form of verbal abuse, because that’s literally what happens before he bites the dust, lotta stabbing here folks, shuichi is the blackened here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:28:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28808856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tripping_Upon_the_Stars/pseuds/Tripping_Upon_the_Stars
Summary: The detective had always helped guide them to the truth, and he does it again - for the last time. Even if they hate him for it.
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede & Saihara Shuichi, Amami Rantaro & Saihara Shuichi, Gokuhara Gonta & Saihara Shuichi, Harukawa Maki & Saihara Shuichi, K1-B0 & Saihara Shuichi, Momota Kaito & Saihara Shuichi, Oma Kokichi & Saihara Shuichi, Saihara Shuichi & Everyone, Saihara Shuichi & Yumeno Himiko
Comments: 7
Kudos: 62





	Rumors : Ultimate Detective Shuichi Saihara (Executed)

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS DEFINITELY INSPIRED BY FIREJUUU'S SHUICHI SAIHARA FANMADE EXECUTION 😭😭😭😭😭
> 
> I just... remember seeing it recommended to me and I sOBBED after watching it. Please go watch it it’s brilliant and I’m 100% sure it’d make you cry too. 
> 
> I don’t take credit for the concept but I did sprinkle in a little bit of my own flare to this?? I might’ve dragged it out longer than I should’ve 
> 
> ANYWAYS PLS ENJOY AND HERE'S A LINK TO THE EXECUTION VID!!!  
> https://youtu.be/12kxORmjY3Q

The first thing Shuichi registers when he wakes up is something scratching his wrists, which is easy enough to figure out despite how his mind still feels foggy, one glance down traces the feeling to the rope tying his wrists together. What sobers him up completely however is the fact that he’s practically linked to the table in front of him.

_‘Oh.’_

Shuichi’s heart drops, but at the same time quickens. The fate about to befall the Ultimate Detective injects a good amount of fear trickling down his spine like short bursts of electricity. 

In the few moments of quiet, his anxiety starts bubbling over as he does his best to keep a level head. So he starts stiffly analyzing his surroundings with the precision deemed worthy of his supposed talent. _‘It’s just rope. Compared to something like handcuffs, it’s just a matter of time. I need to find something sharp.’_

With an objective in mind, Shuichi throws himself into the task of getting ahold of anything remotely able to undo the tie. 

_‘Scissors are obviously out of the option,’_ he knows that much. The detective almost berates himself for pointing out the obvious but then remembers that Monokuma isn’t one for waiting, and returns back to think of more useful things. _‘The table’s edges are rounded. But… my seat is made of wood, isn’t it?’_

The oak chair greets him when he turns around, but instead of relief, his frown deepens. 

Shuichi bites his lip as he glances down in slight frustration and the uncomfortable curling of nauseating paranoia.

_‘It can’t be that easy though, right? How am I supposed to break wood anyways?’_ his shifting golden eyes shine with annoyed tears, willing himself to look around again. His reflection in the one-way window mocks him.

That’s when the ultimate detective is struck with an answer.

“I can use a glass shard to cut the rope,” he whispers under his breath.

_‘It might be impossible to try but…’_

Shuichi turns around - as much as he can with how his hands are linked in front of him, but that doesn’t bother him as much as it would’ve earlier. Shuichi isn’t the tallest out of all the guys (or the girls for that matter) but in that moment, he’s thankful that at least he isn’t as short as someone like Kokichi _or_ Ryoma.

The clock is ticking and Shuichi is on the brink of vomiting but the point is that he still manages to reel his leg back in and drive his heel against the glass, backed up with pure adrenaline and the desire to find the truth.

_’I refuse to die when the mastermind is still out there!’_

It’s a blinding epiphany, ringing like church bells. His eyes shut from the force and the worry of accidentally blinding himself.

Despite the situation, he feels as if he’s overdosing on hope. His overthinking brain - which had always been working overtime even at that very moment - relaxes at the thought of being able to live. There’s so much at stake - his purpose, his friends, his _future_. His leg aches from the force, but if the glass shatters he can still get a shard to cut himself free. He just needs to listen.

There was supposed to be a crash, followed by multiple shards slipping past each other in a race to the concrete ground. _Supposed to be_.

When Shuichi opens his eyes in confusion, he hears the loud, clunky sound of lights suddenly being fueled with power and sees an empty room behind the stainless window. 

Whatever he feels next is some amalgamation of a panic attack and delirium.

Figures slip into the room, so full of personality that he could recognize every single one of them even before more than an inch of them in through the door. It juxtaposed the fact that just mere moments ago in the class trial, everyone was rendered silent with tears or screaming at Monokuma to stop messing around.

_‘He wasn’t messing around though.’_

“Everyone…” Shuichi shakily manages out of his suddenly dry throat. 

They all smile, all casual like they didn’t know who Shuichi Saihara is anymore.

_‘That’s what the friends and family of murderers usually think, right?’_

Shuichi’s insides plummet to the very bottom of his feet, stirring a void unidentifiable on his being while also nailing his feet to the ground. His friends(???) smile wider, and suddenly, it’s like the life in their eyes moved to their lips, curling as teeth overtakes their features.

“Gonta is so disappointed in Saihara-kun. Gonta now knows how cruel and horrible Saihara-kun be!”

On instinct, he opens his mouth to retaliate despite his throat clogging up, “B-but I-“

“According to my memory…” Kiibo interrupts, looking like he’s concentrating. “You’ve sent almost all our friends to their deaths, am I correct?” his judgemental stare stabs through Shuichi’s throat. “It’s odd… even for you. For what selfish reason would you consider doing such things to your friends?”

Shuichi yelps as a sharp, stinging pain slices through his cheek. Another slips past his forehead. Darting across his arms like brand new scars. Knives start accompanying the various statements hurtling towards the detective at a breakneck pace.

“If I had known beforehand what you were truly like, I would’ve killed you the moment I saw you. How pathetic. I should’ve known you were a sick traitor.”

“Wow, Saihara!” Kokichi snickers, purple eyes gleaming as he throws his hands behind his head. “Look at you! I used to think you were super pathetic and all but I never thought you’d be _this_ stupid. Ah…” he, moving one of his hands to examine them. “I should’ve known expecting anything from you would just make _both_ of us disappointed huh?”

Shuichi heaves, trying to curl up in himself the moment one of the knives slices through the rope. Shaky objections pale in comparison to everyone’s jeers, melting and burning him from the inside. Sweat and blood trickles down his skin. His breathing is ragged as golden eyes dart across the floor at the overwhelming barrage of information.

“Damn, I never thought I’d actually befriend some sort of serial killer but… huh, guess the impossible really is possible no matter what, right? I should’ve realized trying to befriend you - trying to help you… well, just a waste of everybody’s time.”

“What..?-“

Shuichi screams as a blade finally manages to nestle deep into his stomach, his hands flying to press against his wound.

That’s when the floodgates burst wide open.

“I’m sorry - I didn’t - I - I -“

“Saihara-chan is such a crybaby!” cackles ring out the room as the supreme leader doubles over, banging a fist against the window in resounding thumps. “Too bad you cried at everyone else’s deaths cuz none of us are gonna cry for _you_ of all people. Even an evil supreme leader like me has standards - gotta save my real tears for important people!”

Gonta pulling Kokichi away from the glass doesn’t soothe the gaping hole in Shuichi’s chest. He tries forcing his tears back in, trying to make it seem like he could take it. He’s _trying so stop blaming him please please-_

Another knife pierces his leg, ripping another cry from Shuichi’s throat as he leans against the table. The other knife in his stomach digs a little deeper, and he just lets out a choked sob.

“Please s-stop…”

“You drag us down, Shuichi,” Kaito shrugs before a grin and a big thumbs up rise like fireworks in the middle of May. Loud, bright, and out of place. “Not even all the training in the world is gonna fix _that_ ,” the astronaut punches his fists together in a laugh. “Gotta feel bad for Himiko and Rantaro, who knew they’d be manipulated by such a two-faced asshole like you!”

Shuichi slumps against the table completely, screams and sobs completely unidentifiable whether which ones were out of emotional or physical pain. He jolts as another knife drives through his back.

Kaito got his facts right though.

The day’s events seem so surreal. Everything feels so oddly detached in a way that all his happy memories slip from his grasp. Jokes with Kaito and Maki just from that day’s morning cut ties with Shuichi, like his brain suddenly decided a person as vile as him doesn’t deserve anything mundane and simple and _okay_.

In that moment, he acknowledges that truth all over again.

Shuichi’s back to his first case, glared down by a total stranger, so weak that he was somehow shattered by something like that. To know that he was hateable enough for complete strangers to up and judge that he’s nothing but a useless leech, taking everyone’s happiness - _bestowing punishment on the innocent_.

“Saihara-kun has not a single ounce of compassion. Normally, saying such crass things would fuel robophobic thoughts that I’m heartless - but I believe this one moment is fine, because saying the truth is anything but wrong.”

He’s heartless.

His heart aches, amplified by every graze and stab to his trembling body. But he finds that it’s alright.

_‘I suppose I do deserve this,’_ Shuichi hiccups, forcing himself to get off the desk. _‘I took advantage of Chabashira-san’s death, Yumeno-san’s grieving, and Amani-kun’s amnesia.’_

_‘Why did I even think about escaping this bloody execution anyways?’_

He lifts himself up to take a lingering glance over at everyone’s faces.

Hate.

Anger.

Disappointment.

Shuichi’s gaze falls back to his bloody hands - and suddenly he’s back at the crime scenes, manipulating the fatal wounds and the blood splatters, littering red herrings and getting rid of any incriminating evidence.

Himiko had been frothing at the mouth - suggesting sarin poisoning - but her neck was snapped at a grotesque angle. Her blue-black lips suggested barbiturate poisoning but the multiple stab wounds to her stomach said that she bled out and died.

‘Yumeno-san was bludgeoned to the back of her head,’ Shuichi’s mind unhelpfully supplies as he recalls. ‘I used the staff from her lab. No one would be able to tell what the fatal wound was because I placed her in the pool after, the blood just spread and kinda washed it out of her hair.’

Rantaro’s bashed-in face made him almost unrecognizable at first, which didn’t necessarily matter when his head was severed from the rest of him via one of Angie’s carving tools.

‘Strangled… well, smothered. Amami-kun’s time of death was somewhere around evening. I felt bad for taking advantage of his weakness at such a time - but then he woke up and the first thing I did was knock him back unconscious.’

He grips the edge of the table, leaving bloody handprints against the metal as he whimpers to no one but himself, “But I didn’t… this isn’t what I meant to do… to happen.”

During the trial, Shuichi lied through his teeth. He joined the correct side for a bit and pointed out a piece of evidence that practically shattered the possibility of him being the blackened. He did everything he should’ve done. 

As the ultimate detective, Shuichi Saihara had created the perfect crime. 

Maybe _too_ perfect.

“Pathetic!”

“Useless!”

“Big ol liar!”

“Stupid!”

“Wearing your hat won’t do you any good,” Maki hisses, bearing a knife. “But it’ll give you a few more seconds to live before a slit your fucking throat.”

“Ms. Scary Assassin over here really telling her next kill some tips? Boring! You might as well be giving him a self-defense manual, Harumaki, give my beloved a fighting chance here - but that’s a lie! I don’t care if Saihara-chan bites the dust.”

Kaito looks off to the side, scratching the back of his neck, “There was someone more annoying than this gremlin after all - hey Shuichi! Y’know, you’d do us all a big favor if you just stood still!” he laughs, “Don’t be all shakey like that. You should know that we wanted you gone ever since.”

“It was quite burdensome,” Kiibo mutters, “Every now and then was just fine but Saihara-kun was always so… clingy. It used to be a pleasant thing but being exposed to the same stimuli over and over loses its appeal.”

Shuichi shuts his eyes as tight as he can, sucking in harsh breaths as the truth he had known for so long smashes against his head and cuts his skin deeper than he ever tried.

“Do you want to die?”

He lets his hands drop, hanging limply to his side. He doesn’t have to see to know the murderous look on Maki’s face, at that point, her rhetorical question sounded like she was asking for confirmation instead.

He lets his hands drop to his sides, deciding that shielding himself from pain is as useless as he is at that point. Golden eyes stare up at everyone, lip quivering and bloody with pink, coating his flesh like the so-called truth he forced upon the convicted.

Shuichi’s body jerks back and forth - wherever the force of the next knife pushes him.

The truth is dead.

He might’ve just created the perfect crime - orchestrating it to seem like the mastermind had finally cracked.

In everyone’s eyes however, he feels his mistakes sear his skin, closing his wounds just to open up new ones. His title as the ultimate detective just felt like some sort of name tag - a brand. A lie.

He’s no better than the mastermind at that point.

“Boo! Coward.”

“Waste of space.”

“Gonta can’t believe you!”

“It’s unfortunate but wolves tend to flock amongst sheep.”

“You really weren’t worth befriending in the first place!”

“Should’ve never trusted the - ahem, _Ultimate Detective_ if he was just gonna turn around and stab our backs!”

“Manipulator!”

“Everyone hates you, man!”

“Can’t stop being a burden till the very end, huh?”

Shuichi weakly argues back. “If you all hate me so much then why am I still alive?”

“Don’t you know, Shuichi?” a sweet, melodic voice whispers into his ear. It vanishes just as fast as it had arrived when the detective’s gaze starts darting around in alarm.

“You’ve always been an over-thinker… so I just wanted to help convince you that this is the truth.”

“Believe me when I say this Shuichi - You are anything but my friend. I’m disappointed, honestly! Went ahead and murdered someone like that just because of Monokuma’s motive. If we’re all that worthless to you then it’s only right to resent you in your final moments.”

Shuichi spots a blur of pink in the corner of his eye, whipping around until he saw the most familiar face of all.

He cries harder.

As he rapidly blinks away his tears in hopes to catch a better glimpse of Kaede, his chokes cut off into a scream. 

One glance down confirms the presence of a blade longer than any knife poking out of his stomach, and shakily turning his head around tells him everything.

“You got blood all over me, Shuichi,” Kaede sighs, like she hadn’t just stabbed him clean through. “I thought you would’ve stopped being such an inconvenience when your execution started.”

Shuichi coughs up more blood, renewing the pink stains that dribbled out of his mouth before slumping forward in a heap of hurt.

“Heartless murderer.”

“You’re no sidekick of mine!”

“You’re nothing!”

Everyone continues to laugh and jeer at his expense.

“I didn’t… I didn’t mean for this to happen…” Shuichi rasps.

Kaede sits next to him, “For what to happen? Were you hoping to get away with the murders and kill everyone else? To escape by yourself?”

He sniffles, “It… It wasn’t… I mean…”

The detective gasps a shuddering breath, screwing his eyelids shut as he tries to find an answer within his muddled brain and fading consciousness.

_‘I could die from blood loss…’_

“Well, Shuichi?”

“I didn’t - this - _this_ \- the murders…” he opens up his eyes, half-lidded and brimming with tears, “... I was gonna lure out the mastermind.”

He huffs, glancing down.

“Was gonna kill… Gonta, but then Kokichi ran up to me before I could hand him the cup of tea. Kokichi could’ve been the mastermind, but I knew through circumstantial evidence that he couldn’t be.”

“It’s stupid to guess so blindly but my plan ensured that even if I die here, two or more of our classmates could be cleared - and I’m not just talking about Yumeno-san and Amani-kun.”

Shuichi reasons to himself that if he’s going to die, he might as well spill the truth to his friends - _classmates_ \- and hope that at least, his motive would mean something.

“But… yeah. I guess it didn’t matter if the Ultimate Detective was the one who committed the perfect crime, huh?” he shudders, glancing up to meet Kaede’s dead gaze. “If everyone could tell that Shuichi Saihara did it just by the fact that the crime scene _looked_ professional enough, nothing else matters.”

“I felt everything… being the blackened is… I hate it. I hate how I chose Yumeno-san because of her lack of strength and her mourning for Tenko. I hate how I knew Amani-kun wouldn’t be able to fight back once I cornered him in his dorms. I hate how I took advantage of _everyone_.”

“... I’m filthy, and no one truly won in the end, right? Just the mastermind…”

Everyone else starts filing into the room, looking down at him as they watch the light fade from his already muddy eyes. Shuichi’s breath hitches as he reaches a hand out.

“Even if you all hate me, please end this killing game. I’m sorry I did all this. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. No one has to miss me. I wish… I wish I could’ve found a different solution to the problem but… my death would remove your burdens.”

He chokes up at the emotionless gazes beating down on him like scorching rays of sun, and closes his eyes.

He wants to scream - beg for the truth because his detective mind can’t believe their words despite how readily he accepted the facts. He selfishly wishes for their tears - for their screams of telling him to hold onto his life like they always did before. 

He was never truly desired. He came to this conclusion after his parents dropped him onto his uncle, and even in his dying moments, he comes to that same conclusion once again.

Shuichi can accept it, but if anyone in front of him whispers that they’ll miss him - he’d accept that in a blink of an eye and toss away his old belief.

He’s so young. Just 16. So many promises to keep and so many more to make. 

He hears everyone shuffle away, and when he peaks an eye open he sees some sort of spear dangling above him.

There is barely any peace in him, but also no fight left. His heart is beating out of his chest but he doesn’t want to move.

“Everyone…” he mumbles to the empty silence. 

He closes his eyes.

“Please…”

The spear dangles still, gently swinging back and forth ever so slightly.

“Live.”

Shuichi hears a snip, and the last thing he gets to imagine is everyone all alive and smiling.

_**Shuichi Saihara, Ultimate Detective : Executed** _

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this wasn’t too OOC 😭 despite reading so much fanfiction about the characters, I can’t seem to get their personalities right????
> 
> I really enjoyed writing this though because... putting Shuichi in misery and having everyone else watch punches my stomach ✨✨✨ but like in a good way
> 
> If you liked this, read this, cried at this, please consider commenting or giving a nice ol kudos! I live for even a single one of those. Anyways, have a great day and or night!!


End file.
